How To Run And Test Firefox OS Simulator on Mac

Recently Mozilla launched its mobile operating system named Firefox OS. It also recently launched official prototype of its variants of smartphone. The platform is completely based on HTML5 and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). Firefox OS can be considered a mixture of iOS and Android with much inspired Ubuntu feel. Being a developer, I feel Firefox OS will be a competition to existing mobile OS because it will attract developers as it is purely based on HTML5 platform. So are you curious to put your hands on this new OS? You can get your hands dirty on Firefox OS without actually buying the physical device with just few clicks of mouse within your computer. So wouldn’t it be better to get a feel of it before actually going for it?

Note: The procedure is same for other operating systems too. But we will be mentioning Mac here as the tutorial has been performed on the Macintosh machine.

How To Simulate Firefox OS on Mac:

There are only two elements you will need to simulate Firefox OS in your Mac. First you need to download latest version of Mozilla Firefox web browser. If you don’t have one, download here.

Now you will be asked to install the file, click on “Install Now” to install the simulator

The browser will now instantly open a page with “Firefox OS Simulator” preview.

Now you can slide the simulator button on left to run or stop the simulation (see screenshot below for more understanding)

Additional, Mac users can perform the following keyboard shortcuts to simulate the device in the simulation:

Home key (Fn + LeftArrow): Home Button

End key (Fn + RightArrow): Power Button

PageUp/PageDown keys (Fn + UpArrow/DownArrow): Volume Up/Down buttons

That’s it! You have successfully established Firefox OS simulation. Now you can run and feel the new OS. The first screen has a lock screen which you will have to drag up using you mouse cursor and click on the lock symbol to unlock it. We were interested to see how the simulation works. Surprisingly the simulation worked satisfactory. It gives the real feeling about the OS. It has a home key at the bottom, slide to view couple of home screens, and much more. Here are few screenshots of the Firefox OS’s UI